Instagram just came up with a very non-digital way to educate digital marketers about its platform.
Yesterday, the photo-sharing service announced that it was publishing a handbook for marketers, containing tips, tools and best practice examples for brands looking to advertise on it. The book, titled “The Instagram Handbook for Brands” won’t be ‘readily available” according to Instagram, which means it will probably personally distribute it to the big name brands it wants to advertise on its platform.
However, this doesn’t mean no one else gets access to that content. Instagram will regularly publish tips from the book in a series of blog posts. The first one is here, and it cites the examples of Warby Parker, General Electric and GoPro as some of the brands to emulate when it comes to creating sponsored content.
It’s a pretty proactive approach from Instagram, after it debuted its first ads only a few months ago. The underlying message it is trying to send marketers is that as long as they create something aesthetically pleasing and genuinely visually engaging, they’ll gain a following on Instagram. Whether this leads to actual sales however is another matter, and you can bet marketers will be asking for more in that area, whether its improved analytics or user targeting. Now that Instagram’s under Facebook, it definitely has the technology to do that, but arguably its young, more hip audience would have a stronger negative reaction to being shown targeted sponsored content.
Here’s a video made by Instagram showcasing how brands are using the platform to promote themselves:
